Introduction

Do leaders make history, or does history make leaders? What should we do when the wrong people are in power? And how can we harness the answers to find and become better leaders today?

This book offers a deep-dive into the art, science and practice of leadership around the world and across ages, led by a Harvard professor and historian.

Through wide-ranging and lively stories, Moshik Temkin considers the lessons, and warnings, we can take from leaders such as Franklin D Roosevelt and the suffragettes, the Civil Rights struggle and anticolonial wars.

From the necessary qualities of leaders in a crisis, to how to lead when you don’t have any power, this book also examines how, in a world desperate for good leadership, we might draw lessons for ourselves today.